If you read the rules life styles serve no purpose at all they seem to be a waste of money for the most part. Here's some of my advice on how to fix that

karma bonus

after each run the pc's gain the following bonus to karma based on life style.

street -2

squatter -1

low 0

med 1

high 2

luxury 3

Edge bonus:

once per run allow the runners to rest at their house (must be for an entire day of relaxation with no running work at all)

restore this number of bonus points to their edge pool (up to their maximum edge):

street 0

squatter 1

low 2

med 3

high 4

luxury 5


Since restoring edge and karma are up to the gm these are both legal also.

If you have fun with this by all means go for it, but we have no need to change life style rules at our table. They play a pretty decent role in our game, and players often maintain multiple lifestyles in order to avoid law enforcement officials and enemies.

This is a terrible idea. Not only do you provide a method for gaming the Karma system, you artificially change the way their Edge refreshes. Lifestyles are good enough as it is, especially if you use the rules from the Runner's Companion. Having your own little slice of heaven/closet in hell is NOT to be underestimated.

For example, our rigger character needs a vehicle shop... but where in the hell are you going to put one without a lifestyle? Your mage needs a place to set up their lodge... again, lifestyle. Heck, my character lives on a frickin' boat, but he needs Matrix access, food to eat, and personal security devices to fry any potential intruders. This is all rolled into the lifestyle costs.

If lifestyles are being underutilized in your campaign, you need to provide some good reasons to have one (and the good reasons are all there), and NOT Karma/Edge rewards.

I have on PC in my game that has spent 7,000Y on a single outfit, just so he has something nice to wear. I have another that regularly blows 1,000Y per suit because he refuses to buy anything of a lesser quality and ONLY suits.

Why should players be rewarded for doing basic stuff they should be doing anyway?

Staying in character is what roleplaying is about. You get karma for staying true to the concept. I wish I got karma for paying my rent but it doesn't work like that.

- J.

Incentives would be nice from a game design point of view. I understand that desire; it sucks having to spend (in many cases) a huge chunk of nuyen every single month that doesn't really net you anything. When, instead, you could get the same "benefit" by just going with a Street lifestyle and instead spending the cash on upgraded implants or whatever else.

From a roleplaying point of view, it's exactly the opposite. It just makes sense to have this particular expense. And a cushy lifestyle, even for a month, is an awesome reward in and of itself.

One thing you could do is be more literal about the things Lifestyles give you as pointed out in their individual descriptions in Runner's Companion. A High Necessities (or maybe it was Entertainment), for example, allows you to buy all the armored clothing you like for free. Everything up to and including Berwick or Actioneer suits. If you prefer the basic lifestyles, you could just come up with some guidelines on your own. A Medium lifestyle might net you a leased Mercury Comet sedan, a Low one might get you a three-wheeled Honda Spirit, a High one might get you a Eurocar Westwind sports car, and a Luxury one will get you your own Mitsubishi Nightsky armored limo or Sea Nymph yacht. If they get destroyed your lifestyle could just get you a new one thanks to your insurance package as long as it wasn't too suspicious.

Pretty much a free equipment for everyday life. You could always choose to use it on a run, too, but there'll be a paper trail back to you. So either associate that lifestyle with a really fancy fake SIN or be ready to be hounded if you decide to do so.

Those are the types of incentives you should consider. The free licenses, alone, can be a God-send, especially if you travel a lot.

Certain things are assumed in your lifestyle that are rather important, you shouldn't need runners companion to realize that.
The very important things that are covered, food, laundry, phone bills and even security. Your vehicles fuel and basic maintenance. (not combat damage but the basics needed to keep it fined tune and running). Then of course security because all runners have to sleep at night. Where you live can have a big effect when someone comes after you during your down time. If some criminal element is after you and you live in in a secure zone(high lifestyle). They'll have go through them to get to you.

Then you simply have the roleplaying element(and if your not roleplaying Shadowrun your doing it wrong) how many runners live for shadowrunning? few. How many shadowrunners live for the money to enjoy their luxuries plenty. If you want to make lifestyles more important you can do other things. Say and low lifestyle (and below) runners may have problems from fatigue,(if you recently pissed off some people and live in a poor neighborhood with crappy security you just might have problems sleeping at night). malnutrition and other stuff from having a low lifestyle.

Here's a good example of a negative quality, combing with roleplaying for good effect, my own character has an allergy to soy its mild and could handle it in small amounts but a plate of soycaff smeared in his face would give him a really bad rash. Even smelling the stuff can cause him problems.
This means a high life style (at least in necessities is required), so he can eat real food.
He's also a charismatic Elf, the face of the group and likes to hit on beautiful and exotic women.

Are we all talking about the same thing here?

To me (and to the rulebook), buying a lifstyle refers to buying a permanent one. Then I can understand how useless it is for a runner. Or rather the other way around: why keep on running since your life is already secured?

I think there are penalties for any focused tasks such as learning a spell, working on a gun or drone,... when done in a too much shabby place, but I don't remember where it is written.

Rent? Mortgage? Utilities? Groceries?

If you buy a permanent lifestyle you don't have to worry about any of those things. You're set for, well, life.

???

If your character has a Street lifestyle and isn't fighting off gangers, robbers, or toxic spirits every night, your GM is doing it wrong™.

Lifestyles serve a very important purpose; at a bare minimum, they give the players a reason to keep running even if all other reasons are moot by allowing the GM to take excess money out of thew campaign and keep the players hungry for more money. The rules are fine. If they don't mean much in a particular campaign, that's the fault/responsibility of the GM.

That's a roleplaying concern. Those things don't happen solely because of the Street Lifestyle mechanics. It happens because the GM is enforcing the roleplaying aspect of a Street Lifestyle. So like I said, from a mechanics point of view, there's no reason to get anything higher than a Street Lifestyle. All a Luxury Lifestyle gets you is a 100,000-nuyen a month bill mechanically.

mechanically speaking, runner's companion includes certain things that are automatically covered by lifestyle: memberships to exclusive clubs, clothing up to a certain cost per unit, food (low+), maintenance on vehicle(s)/drone(s)/softs/programs, space for a shop, etc. you may argue that it doesn't add up to the value of the lifestyle each month, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a mechanical benefit to them.

I agree that there isn't much difference between street and squatter mechanically, but the price is right for the roleplay benefits. Low / Medium / High are all pretty reasonable, and luxury is absurd precisely *because* it's meant to be roleplay again. (then again, permanent seats at the most exclusive clubs in the world and private jets are a powerful roleplay incentive)

I really have to agree with Jericho Alar Here... there are tangible mechanical benefits/drawbacks to the various lifestyles as presented in the material... there are also roleplay benefits to them as well... if you are not using these to enhance the flavor of your games, then that is the fault of the Table at which you are playing, not the Mechanics of the game...

Keep the Faith

I can certainly see the logic of letting Lifestyle modify the difficulty of extended projects. Sure, some hackers do all their work in shabby places, but really, good food, better coffee, hourly drone massages to relax you should help. Exceptions should mostly apply to some Initiation Ordeals (Asceticism comes to mind )

Sure, but that again comes into the realm of the GM... he is free to give modifiers based upon circumstance, and lifestyles are the epitome of circumstance...

Keep the Faith

So you would prefer if there was a random table for who jumps you while you're sleeping in a dumpster, then? And rules for starvation, since a character with a Street Lifestyle only eats what they find, to force them to spend RP time scrounging for food?

only if 6-6-6 is Dragon.

or a free spirit with a golden fiddle....

The hell is wrong with people around here anymore?

Just because I recognize the difference between a game mechanic and a roleplaying concern doesn't have any thing to do with what I think of those mechanics or concerns. Jesus Christ. Hey, guess what! I know that using 4, 5 and 6 as a hit and allowing exploding dice with the Rule of Six on all tests is an optional game mechanic. Guess what else! That doesn't mean I'm going to use it in my games. Did I just blow your mind or what?!?

Easy now, you're gonna give yourself an aneurysm.

"Johnny said, 'Devil, just come on back it you ever wanna try it again, I done told you once, you son-of-a-bitch, I'm the best there's ever been.'"

You should learn to relax a bit Doc... I hear that Meditation is a good practice... *Woosa*

Keep the Faith

Even ascetism is easier if you're well fed and healthier before hand. When you start starving yourself (even low-level starvation) you begin burning off muscle and fat for energy. With more of those to begin with (some fat is good for your body, by providing a little bit of cushioning for your organs), you're more likely to stay healthier for longer under deprivation conditions.


One of the cool things is to give players rolls like [Security + Neighbourhood] for foiling attempts to tamper with their living space. Any 'runner can appreciate that kind of benefit.

Edit: By "foiling attempts to tamper with their living space" I mean "the player(s) get(s) significant advance warning of the fact" as much as "it just don't happen". And by "tampering" I mean, explosive surprises, or ambushes inside their homes.

The difference between the high end and the low end of lifestyles is usually pretty significant (streets to luxury), but from one to the next it's usually not a big deal. Low lifestyle is supposed to be a little less secure on the whole from Middle, but it's not like you lose gear from one month to the next because your "security rating" was lower than the cost of your stored gear.

The difference between High Lifestyle and Middle over the course of a year is 60k. Middle to Low is 36k. The difference between High and Low over a year is 96k. It's hard to argue for a cyber character, 96k can't be put to better use than lifestyle. (And this is ignoring the oddly worded rule that means you technically only have to pay every other month of Lifestyle. Or that a four man team can afford a high Lifestyle for everybody for 1625k each a month.)

It doesn't offend me to tie some mechanical benefits to these expenditures. I like the Edge refresh, I can see runners who're low on edge being strung out and running on empty and needing to crash for a bit, and crashing on silk sheets in a high rise is probably more refreshing than in a squalid apartment surrounded by sirens and staccato gunfire. The Karma bonus I wouldn't use though, just because I've never cared for the cash for karma systems.

Well Said...

Keep the Faith

I overreacted. I conflated what you said with what the OP said and jumped to the conclusion that you were of the opinion that if there weren't mechanics for it, it didn't exist. I apologize.

Oh. Well, sorry for responding in kind. I get uppity sometimes.

I was just going to point out that "The hell is wrong with people around here anymore?" doesn't make any sense grammatically.

Or is this a bad time?

I type with an obscure dialect. <nods sagely>

Well then, That explains it...

Keep the Faith

The Meditation way to initiation does benefit from a good lifestyle, but I think that the whole point of Asceticism is doing without easy life; if you have big fat reserves, it would probably take you longer. It's one of those religious "being poor makes you purer" things.

Huh, somehow that doesn't quite ring true to me, I always got the impression it was just about having self control over your personal possessions, rather than always having "your money on your mind and your mind on your money". I don't know about what others have noticed, but I have noticed the richer someone is, the more they seem to worry about losing it and that fear, just like any other, can control (or be used to control) them rather than them controlling their fear.

With that in mind, I don't think having a higher lifestyle would make the Asceticism harder but having nothing to lose would make it easier. Think of it like a rich person who lives spartan, doesn't flaunt that wealth, and tries to leave a tiny a foot print on others as possible. Hope that makes some sense.

You can have a Luxury Lifestyle if you really wanted to and still do the Asceticism ordeal. You just have to "buy" a Street Lifestyle for one month, too, and actually live that way for the duration. Having a permanent lifestyle or prepaying several months in advance doesn't prevent you from doing that.

If game balance reasons, you need to make all your party members buy the same lifestyle.

For character optimisation purposes, always start with 1 month of a high lifestyle because it results in free money.

if it was for game balance purposes, I'd just make them buy the lifestyle they want their 'hideout' to be as a bunch of roommates and call it a day.

personally I think that having characters with varying lifestyles adds some fun depth to the interaction between those characters, but that could just be my table. (we do *love* our downtime..)

This is a bad idea. If their is any material advantage to having a high lifestyle, you'll killing street sammies and rewarding mages. Which hardly needs to happen I might add.

I don't think there's such a major game balance issue there.. I've had episodes with people robbing the high-living fridge, that was cute. And in the first session of this campaign someone managed to nick another character's credstick - so much for starting money.

Well, it just sucks out money that the street sammie desperately needs for gear.

Remember, your playing a game where street sammies advance with Nuyen, and mages advance with Karma. creating extra money sinks is functionally the same as giving more karma or less money which skews the balance towards mages. Who are pretty much already better so why give them a hand up.

People stealing money from other party members is just a dick move and I wouldn't let that fly in my game. It's like letting people steal karma from each other...

I, like many others here, believe that the RP implications of lifestyle are enough on their own to warrant spending the nuyen on them. And as many have pointed out, there are 'hidden' benefits of having a good lifestyle, like free transportation, free nights on the town, free clothing, free food, and so on. Basically any time a person with a high lifestyle buys food/clothing/transportation, they don't have to pay for it (unless it is truly excessive) because it is assumed that their lifestyle picks up the tab.

Also, if your GM is any good at all and you try pulling off street lifestyle as being 'just as good as high', then you are going to run into trouble for all the following instances:
Clothing. You are going to be dressed like a dirty street hobo. Good luck getting into any good places (And even alot of bad ones) with that look.
Hygiene. The first time the enemy finds you because they made a perception(scent) check will be awesome.
Matrix. MSP is defined in lifestyle, thus if you have street lifestyle you have no MSP, and thus will have massive penalties on matrix actions.
Malnutrition. This is talked about in the book, but no specific rules are giving, thus the GM is fully justified in doing whatever she wants. Personally I'd be docking stats.
Travel. As well as your dirty hobo look getting you bared from clubs, it will also get you barred from certain areas and forms of travel.
Sleep. You have no security and no space, thus sleeping will be an issue if you don't want to be robbed blind. Sleep deprivation rules are finally in the game.
Stuff. You won't be able to own any more stuff than you can carry on you, which can be a real hindrance for most characters.
Other. I'm sure there are plenty of other things I'm forgetting here, but these are just the ones coming to mind off hand.

I know several of these can be lowered or mitigated completely with a low lifestyle, but, well, that was the whole point, higher lifestyles have higher benefits.

Edit: Oh, and high lifestyle to start the game with totally pays for itself in starting nuyen. And who keeps all their cash on a credstick any more?

Actually, an MSP is just a bunch of convenience services. Someone who doesn't have an MSP will be difficult to reach via the Matrix (since they don't have any unified contact address if they change 'link), and they won't have access to some crappy Agents running on a monitored node, but otherwise their Matrix works about as fine as can be expected from Neighbourhood and Necessities 0.


I find the fact that you don't tell your PCs that lifestyle means so much in your game a bit dickish. Don't give me none of that "R-E-A-L-I-S-M" crap. SR has never been a realistic game, and injecting any attempt at that into the game somewhere you don't tell people is just plain unexpected for a game where some people punch people in the face using exploding fists.

I still don't quite get what lifestyle has to do with game balance?

None. Its Plot.

Hmm, I thought there was a section in unwired that talked about having penelties to certain matrix actions if you didn't have a good MSP. I guess I was remembering wrong. For some reason, despite how much I like playing hackers generally, I never really sat down and read Unwired through like most other books.



Who said I don't tell my PCs that lifestyles are important? I don't recall saying that, and I doubt you'd find any of my players claiming they've been unfairly punished for having a particular lifestyle. Most of the things I mentioned are in the book after all, including clothing, malnutrition, and sleep/security issues.

And you can't really say that 'any attempt to inject realism into the game is just plain unexpected' when it is done all the time. After all, the books never mention anything about not being able to see through solid walls, but I inject realism that you can't see through solid walls. It also fails to mention being able to see through glass, but I once again inject realism into the game. Mention of requiring air? There are rules for choking and drowning, but I don't think there is anything that stipulates that you require air in your surrounding environment to survive, thus I once again inject realism. And finally, there are no rules for being placed under a giant bolder and allowing it to crush someone, and yet, somehow, I don't think that players find it unexpected if such an action would turn them into a squishy smear, or at least break a few ribs.

Oh, right, and then there is food in the first place. There are no rules for malnutrition (that I recall), and so in theory no reason that a character ever has to eat anything, other than realism. So, don't give me any of that "R-E-A-L-I-S-M-I-S-N-T-P-A-R-T-O-F-T-H-E-G-A-M-E" crap, because you've played every single game via the use of a large injection of realism. This is an RPG for a dystopia fantasy type world that is based in a vaguely realistic world. RPGs don't provide everything in the universe. Things must be added, like realism. If you want a game that has everything already in it and requires no additions, play a computer game, there the rules are absolute and fixed. In a tabletop RPG the rules are fluid and the game requires input, imagination, and yes, a touch of realism and observations from real life.

Does the book mention that bullets aren't able to travel in a curve? You have no idea how much realism is in your game, so like I said, don't give me that crap.

I had assumed that your use of the term "hidden" in relation to the advantages of better lifestyle/disadvantages of a worse lifestyle was a case of a GM punishing players for not meeting the unspoken parameters of their game, or giving repeat players an unwarranted advantage, by just not indicating the problems with taking a lower lifestyle.

It would not be all too difficult to describe how to avoid some (not all) of the consequences you describe, and I presumed that experienced players would know these tricks and employ them to get away with fewer disadvantages than a newer player. The player characters are 'runners and should be presumed to have gained some experience at these kinds of things on their way up the ladder of for-hire criminals, I would just presume that they deploy them to maximum effectiveness without asking for any kind of description.

It seems, however, that I was mistaken about your actual position, and for that I would like to extend my apologies.



As to MSPs,


Usually, in a city, you can get free access somewhere. However, one wonders what the hell these "access points" even do, since the network is a self-healing mesh instead of modern wireless. That mention of "access points" seems awfully confused. Nonetheless, an MSP is not apparently vital for a physical or mystical character, but it is helpful. It is totally vital if you intend your character to be Matrix-focussed, though. You can, however, purchase the services you want separate to your lifestyle if you want.

Ah, I see. No, when I said 'hidden' benefits, I meant benefits that are only semi-outlined via the text, but are still there, but are often forgotten about. Most people forget that if they have a high lifestyle, when the meet the J at a club, they don't have to pay to get there or order food or drinks or get good clothing for the meet. If they have a street lifestyle they'll have to walk or pay a cab, they'll have to pay for any food they want out of pocket, heck they might even require a cover charge to get in the door. They'll also either show up in rags or once again have to pay out of pocket to get decent clothing.

All of these things are mentioned in the various descriptions of lifestyles, but most people tend to forget about that. You're right, there are ways to get around basically everything I outlined above, but virtually all of them are going to require the expenditure of nuyen. Water is not a near free commodity like it is in modern days, so a bath/shower will actually be hard to manage on the street without getting a night at a hotel or paying for some water or using dirty water (which mostly defeats the purpose). Similarly you can buy decent clothing, but that again costs money, and is likely to get ruined quickly if you live on the streets. I mean how many homeless people do you know? And how many of them are clean shaven, clean, wear good clothing, and don't draw any sort of attention when they walk into an establishment?

Anyway, I agree that unwired's description of what MSP does seems rather stupid as the wireless is already set up to be accessible from basically everywhere, and where it isn't, there won't be these access points. Commcodes seem like a bit of an oddity, as I thought they were particular to a commlink, but this seems to indicate they are the rough equivalent of an e-mail address. This brings up the question of how one tracks down a particular commlink, but that is a whole other issue.

The free agents are kinda handy though if you don't have a good datasearch skill and similar of your own and you aren't looking up anything particularly suspicious.

This is a good point, CD. Some character types don't need money as much as others, and it would benefit those characters over the others that need their money for things more closely tied to their advancement.

The solution to my mind is to make the magical characters pay the extra 10% in lifestyle costs and take the sammie on as a roommate.

(Personally, I think team lifestyles are too cheap and should probably be +50% of the lifestyle cost, but that's not the meeting we're having right now.)

I always considered those access points to be public use terminals CAPABLE of wireless access to the rest of the matrix. This would let a runner who lost a commlink, is afraid of being traced to his personal comm, just doesn't have one (who the heck doesn't nowadays though?) access the matrix without an extra terminal fee and access to all their private commcodes etc. Just my interpretation though.

I guess that would make sense. Sort of the modern day equivalent of pay phones or library computers, with membership meaning that you don't have to pay. Still, doesn't seem like something that would see much use, alot like the modern payphone, which is why they are harder and harder to find, because everyone has a cellphone, so why pay to have a payphone put up?

True, but that day you wrap your car around a fire hydrant and the cellphone went through the windshield you'd be looking for one. And there's a bit more use to it then just calling, since it has complete matrix functionality, could act as an ATM, shopping terminal, emergency dialing to lonestar or Docwagon... literally thousands of uses.

My group made good use of them actually. They were being hunted by a rogue AI (built as a prime runner). It had great tracking ability so they were afraid to use their own comms. Long story short they got split up and needed to keep in touch and the public terminals were the perfect thing. Use 'em for a short time them get outta Dodge.

Yeah, Perhaps a more accurate comparison would be library computers, which are actually surprisingly popular. It is just that the game seems to set a person's PAN and commlink up as being almost as big a requirement for living as breathing. Heck, who am I kidding, get the right 'ware and you don't need to breath, your commlink is way more important.

It is after all a blackbarry, laptop, computer, notepad, iphone, PDA, credit card, cash, ID card, Drivers License, cellphone, regular phone, cookbook, wallet, and a billion other things all rolled into one. A person without a commlink can't make a phonecall, can't buy anything, can't prove who they are (easily), can't do alot of things that would be fairly required of day-to-day life.

Still, this is a completely different topic, though an interesting one.

I just make everyone buy the same lifestyle (which is related to the tone of the game, running a 'street' game in which 4 players have squatter lifestyles and 1 guy has a high lifestyle is just retarded, and visa versa for an international jet set game in which 4 players are james bond and 1 guy has a squatter lifestyle.) - then I don't have to worry about it dealing with the sammie's oppotunity costs and long term power disparities.